Maybe i'm wrong, maybe i'm right, maybe...

Today, when I get to work, I'm inside the door, but not even close to my office, when a co-worker I'll call "Greg" stops me. And this was our conversation, before I reach my office, before I put my briefcase down, before I can even get close to the coffee.

Greg: Polt, we ran out of item X today.
Me: Okay. *shrug*
Greg: Also, we need another item Y -
Me: I've already put the order in, I'm waiting on clearance.
Greg: And a whole bunch of item Z's.
Me: Yeah, I knew that too, no big deal. I'll get to it when I can.
Greg: So you think you're gonna get us some item X today?
Me: Pffft, no. Probably next week.
Greg: Wha, wha, wha...we'll need item X on Monday!
Me: You can use Items A & B in it's place until I can get you some more item X.

The truth is that I intended on trying to get more Item X's in the afternoon, but I had no idea what might come up during the day, so I didn't want to promise him I would. And really, they certainly COULD use A & B in place of X, at least for a day or two until I could get them more. But whatever.

Not more than a half hour later, I get an email from "Roy". Roy is one of Greg's superiors, and kind of mine, but not directly. Anyway, in it, he writes that "Greg advised of the situation regarding Item X and that you may not to be able to get to it until next week. I know your plate is very full, but if you could get to this as quickly as possible, I'd appreciate it."

Now, I was fine with what Roy wrote. Very professional, I thought. And I was going to try to deal with that in the afternoon, as I said, providing I had the time. But when I read it, I was so PISSED! How DARE Greg run off to Roy and tell him all this and have him send me an email. Bastard! Just like a kid, you can't what your want, so you run and try to get have someone else get it for you. Or, maybe, just like a kid, in that he had to run off and tattle about it.

There were a few other things I had to deal with in Greg and Roy'd department and I was getting the paperwork together on that, as well as with Item X. And the more I sat there and wrote, the hotter I got. Backstabbing, underhanded, little baby shit like that goes on ALL the time where I work, and mostly, I just suck it up. It either involved the high up bosses, or their favorites, and there's no reason to go causing trouble where you know you'll lose, or the issue at hand is minor and I can just let it go. But for some reason, today, I had had enough and I wasn't gonna just suck this up.

By the time I left to go to their department, I was so angry I was literally seeing red (okay, maybe not literally, but close.) I was ALL fired up, and ready for combat. I don't normally get this way, I can think of three, maybe four other times in the 12 years that I worked there were I got all wound up like this. I was going over there, tell Greg the way things were, what I thought of him and his petty-ass ways and damn the consequences.

As I was walking over, I passed too other employees a slight distance away who both said hi to me and asked if I was gonna help them with Item Z....and I flat out ignored them, not wanting anything to difuse my anger and my righteous indignation! I was ready to unleash the hounds of hell with both barrels and I wanted no one but Greg to get the brunt of it.

I walked into thier building, there were three of them gathered around a desk, one of which was Greg. I walked right passed into another empty workroom, saying, "Greg, you and me need to talk." I didn't stop until i was in the room.

Greg came in the room and I didn't even let the door shut before I started. "I realize whatever you need around here has the top priority, at least in your mind, but other people have other priorities!" He said, "Wha-" but I cut him off.

"I've got this to do, and that to do, and this project, and the boss is yelling for this report and the other boss is yelling for that memo, and I've got clients up ass needing this, that, AND the other thing, and all of them needing it RIGHTNOW! and frankly I just don't have time, sometimes, to be at your beck and call!" And all through this, he's trying to inject, saying things like, "What?" and "Huh?" and "I don't-". And all these, that I assume are denials, are just adding fuel to the fire, because how DARE he claim he doesn't know what I'm talking about!!!!!

And then, finally, when I pause for a breath, he says, "What in the HELL are you talking about?"
My retort, "I think it's pretty childish and immature what you did! Coming to me, and asking me about something, and then when you get an answer you don't like, running off to Roy and having him send me an email about getting it done!"

And then HIS eyes lit up and HE pointed the finger at me and said, "I didn't RUN to Roy and tell him anything! He ASKED me what the situation was with Item X, and I told him! And I told him what you said! I didn't even know he sent an email to anyone about it! And he's my superior and if he ASKS me a question, I'm gonna answer it! And you, YOU are nothing to me!"

I think I physically shrunk a few inches. Slouched. My chest full of righteous anger, deflated like a cheap party balloon. I was a beaten man. I wanted to just slink away, leaving a trail of embarassed, shameful slime behind me.

What I did is, I laid my papers on the table between us, brought my hands out in front of me and interlocked the fingers and just said, as calmly as I could muster, "Greg, I'm sorry. I am SO sorry. So VERY sorry." I apologized to him every way I knew how, as many times as I could think of.

He accepted the apology, but he said, "You know I'm not the type to do that." Well, he absolutely IS the type to do that, to do JUST that type of thing, but hell, I was beaten, I wasn't going to bring that up at that point in time.

We shook hands, twice before I left. We joked a bit, and laughed over a few things. I took care of the things I went there to take care of, and then I skulked off back to my office to lick my wounds and wallow in my own patheticness.

I'm most upset, not by what I said, cause frankly, if Greg didnt' deserve the yelling this time, I'm certain at some point in my 12 years, he's done something I should have yelled at him about. And I'm not worried about grudges, or getting even or whatever, cause, really, there's nothing for him to be mad about. I mean, I practically laid on the floor on my back with my legs in the air in a dog form of submission. But what really galls me, what REALLY upsets me, is that I was SO worked up, I was SO ready to just go all out on this guy, which again, is something I never really do there....and it was all for naught.

*SIGH*

Oh well, at another point in the day, one co-worker called another co-worker Buffet Betty (we all call her that, cause she eats ALL the time) and they had a nice, loud, vehement screaming match over the phone, I'm told. At least I didn't call Greg a name.

Or at least I don't think I did...who knows exactly WHAT I yelled when I was all worked up. But I don't think I used any names....

POLT Listening to "Smack My Bitch Up" by Prodigy

"This is absolute shite." "Comics, mate. They rot your brains." - The Butcher, The Boys #2